


Eavesdropping Auriculata

by PrussianInAmerica



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Outsider Perspective, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-04-21
Packaged: 2018-06-03 15:43:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6616198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrussianInAmerica/pseuds/PrussianInAmerica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While trying to avoid home herself, a stranger witnesses a homecoming and a first meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eavesdropping Auriculata

**Author's Note:**

> AKA That Time Ian Wrote Vague as Fuck Kylux for a Class.
> 
> I don't even know what happened to my life. The only thing I write about now is Star Wars.
> 
> Anyway, I apologize for: that sucky summary, the slightly strange wording of everything (I almost never write in present tense, it fucks with everything), how vague it all is, Hux's name (I thought I was being clever), the fact that I made Leia own a flower shop (It wasn't Star Wars related to begin with, that came after I'd already written a few paragraphs and by then I liked the idea too much), it being from an outsider's perspective, and really, just everything.
> 
> But hey, bonus points to the first person to find all eleven words I had to include for the assignment this was written for.
> 
> I'll probably go back over and fix this note later, when I'm not still shellshocked about Prince.

It’s quiet. Not silent – there’s a radio lost somewhere in the humid maze that occasionally breaks out into a song or advertisement between the long bouts of static. It’s quiet, the air is clingy and green-tinged, and everything seems to be still. When she first arrived, there’d been an assiduous clerk at the till, counting change for a harried looking woman buying a bouquet of lilies, but they disappeared into the depths of the shop soon after. Outside, the sounds of a wind chime dance on a breeze.

She hasn’t strayed too far from the entrance, slightly afraid she’ll be lost along with the ghost radio and missing clerk. She might hear the car pull up outside, but she’s too busy reading the info card for _Plumbago Auriculata_ to take notice. It’s a small blue-purple flower whose scent she’s unable to identify. She’s not even sure it has one. _It might look pretty covering a trellis_ , she thinks to herself. Really, she’s just looking for a way to procrastinate returning to her lonely apartment. It’s inconsequential, but it makes her feel like she has a life outside work for a few minutes.

She hears footsteps approaching as she’s scrutinizing some resilient plant she recognizes from the garden her grandfather had kept when she was a child. She remembers it being very tenacious, returning year after year even when he’d stopped tending to it.

“Mom, are you in here?” A man’s voice calls out as the footfalls stop inside the shop. She glances over at the source and finds a giant of a man, clad in dark clothes and standing a few feet in front of another, only slightly smaller, man.

“Why don’t we just check the house?” The smaller man asks, shifting the suitcases in his hands around. He stands in the doorway and looks like he wants to be as far from the sticky heat as he can get.

“She’s usually in–” It’s the sound of a door slamming shut – not in anger, but accidentally, like a screen door with a spring coiled too tight – that cuts the first man off and he turns to look outside again. His face breaks into a grin and he pushes the other man back out of the shop.

She abandons the plumbago and the plant from her grandfather’s garden and moves closer to the door, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while she watches the man. He runs to the middle of the small parking lot, straight into the arms of woman who looks impossibly small next to him. He nearly folds himself over double to better wrap himself around her.

“You’d think they didn’t video chat every week.” A man who must be her husband lingers a few feet back. He looks exasperated as he watches them, but despite this, he appears to be barely restraining himself from falling into the embrace as well. “Sometimes more.” She’s not sure if he’s addressing the man with the suitcases, the mother and son, or just himself.

Eventually the pair part with a smile. The woman pats her son’s arm and he leans into the touch. It reminds her of parched desert plants reaching for water.

“It’s good to see you again, Ben.”

“Good to see you too, ma.”

“This him, then?” She gestures to the man Ben had arrived with, standing apart from the family unit and looking sufficiently awkward with these casual displays of affection.

He nods and sets the suitcases down, coming forward to shake her hand. “Yes, ma’am. I apologize for how late we are, traffic was much worse than I anticipated.”

She laughs away the excuse. “This is the closest to ‘on-time’ Ben has ever gotten. He was born almost two-weeks past his due date. Don’t worry about it.”

“Got a name, son?” The father asks, joining his wife. He’s shorter than their son, but still dwarfs her.

The newcomer looks more uncomfortable than ever as he announces his name is Walter. Ben explains that he much prefers his surname as his father gathers their bags and they all disappear into the little house attached to the shop.

The woman in the shop sighs and takes one last look around before leaving as well, returning to her mundane, slightly reclusive, life.


End file.
